Non-carbon-emitting electricity generation in UK hits new highs

Government figures showing over half of electricity generation by renewables and nuclear in the third quarter of 2017 prove renewables are viable, says think tank

Statistics released by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) shortly before Christmas reveal that low-carbon generation accounted for 54.4 per cent of all electricity contributed to the National Grid in the third quarter of 2017, with renewables’ share accounting for 30 per cent of the total, a record for this period of the year. Renewables’ share was up almost 5 per cent year on year, owing to increased generation capacity, BEIS added.

Fuel used for electricity generation Source: ONS

The proportion of energy coming from gas and coal-fired generation fell to a record low of 42 per cent over the three-month period, while nuclear’s share fell by less than 1 per cent to 24 per cent. The UK remained a net importer of energy over the period, with 7 per cent coming from imports. Demand also fell over the quarter, with consumption at 68TWhr, some 2 per cent lower than the same period in 2016.

According to provisional data, BEIS stated, domestic energy bills rose by 1.2 per cent in 2017 at current prices, although in ‘real terms’ they fell by 0.6 per cent.

Dr Jonathan Marshall, an analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a non-profit think tank monitoring the energy sector, said that the figures refute claims that renewables cannot provide a meaningful contribution to UK energy. “Initial fears that high levels of variable output over short time periods could destabilise the national grid have been proven wrong, and now similar concerns over the integration of longer periods of renewable output have also been shown to hold no weight,” he said. “As the technology to integrate more wind and solar improves, these headline figures are set to become more and more frequent. At the same time, record low prices for new renewables will bring bills down for British homes and businesses, on top of maintaining the UK’s leading position in the global battle against climate change.”

Small correction to the headline of this article. There is no system in use that ever produces carbon as a waste by product, when generating electricity. We already have 100% carbon free electrical generation….

This is more hype from the “Climate Change Machine”. Firstly, the renewables includes Drax, which is totally dishonest as its wood burn is a bigger polluter than the coal fired power it displaces, and provides ridiculously expensive subsidised power.
Secondly, the higher wind power and solar mean that we are paying bigger subsidies and getting more expensive electricity than would be produced by the evil gas and coal fired power stations: the power cost is well over double that of coal for a negligible carbon dioxide saving.
Thirdly, the UK’s leading position is an indictment of the squandering of UK resources into carbon reduction for expensive power, while the rest of the world, especially Germany, China and India that we have to compete with, continue to increase their carbon dioxide outputs.
The Trump-led message that carbon dioxide is beneficial not harmful is slowly filtering through to other countries: but the UK has its self-destructive Climate Change Act to live with.
Fourthly, the so-called record low prices for renewables refers to possible projects in the future, even current projects are massively subsidised at typically £ 140 / MWh while coal can generate at £50 / MWh: NB Germany is well on top of this benefit!

India is investing heavily to cut its CO2 emissions, with emissions rising 2 per cent in 2017 compared with 6.7 per cent in 2016. China is instituting an emissions trading scheme, with the intention of ensuring its emissions peak by 2030. And the main reason that Germany’s emissions are rising is that it uses coal to buffer its fast-growing wind generation capacity; emissions wouldn’t have grown as much if the country didn’t use lignite coal, the most polluting type, in more than half of its power stations.

If you’re really taking a “Trump-led message” on anything as good news, then you may want to check whether you’re living in the real world.

I am all in favour of renewables (and I wish more progress was being made on tidal, but that’s another story), but if Dr. Marshall’s comments were actually true, the proportion of renewables would be increasing rapidly, whereas, what strikes me strongly about this graph is how slow and steady the increase of renewables is. It is good that it IS increasing, but if this graph shows anything it shows that all the non-coal/gas sources have only increased from about 7 Mtoe to 8 Mtoe in 3 years, in spite of all the hype.
I think the most positive thing about this graph is the gradual elimination of coal. Many anti-fossil-fuel enthusiasts refuse to acknowledge that gas makes a tiny proportion of the CO2 that coal makes.
I think the most negative thing this graph shows is the lack of growth of Nuclear, a great shame.

It’s a pity the figures for renewable includes the (high-carbon) burning of wood at places like Drax. Can The Engineer revise the graphs to show bioenergy contribution as a separate wedge please? I think readers will be surprised to see just how much ‘clean energy’ is generated in polluting thermal power stations.

Good to see demand falling, if the 2% YoY figure can be maintained over the next decade or so that will make decent contribution to climate targets.

Jack Broughton
…
The Trump-led message that carbon dioxide is beneficial not harmful is slowly filtering through to other countries: but the UK has its self-destructive Climate Change Act to live with

I can’t decide if this comment is serious or a joke. On any level, believing that more carbon dioxide is beneficial is not consistent with the scientific consensus. Jack, you are on record as stating “The global temperature is virtually insensitive to CO2.”. I wish it was true (perhaps you can reference a peer reviewed publication stating that ?), but both evidence and the precautionary principle suggest business as usual is just not on, irrespective of the other negative effects of more CO2 in the atmosphere.

I seem to have garnished a bit of anger through my comments about the hype over renewables and the general media acceptance of anything that is published by the “Green-blob”.
I certainly hold no brief for Trump, but he is the first leader to openly attack the “consensus science” that is global warming. In response to Chris, the evidence against CO2 as a warming agent is in 3 main areas:
1. The IPCC technical reports assess CO2 without allowing for the massive interaction with moisture (and even clouds) in defining their values for the Radiative Forcing Factors (RFF): the RFF is the driver of all the global warming theory and values in the IPCC report can vary from – 1 W/m2 to 8.5 W/m2: the latter value requiring an unproven and unprovable feedback mechanism, a committee selected the recommended value with little real scientific evidence to back this up.
2. There have been much warmer periods in the last 2000 years (the Roman and Medieval warm periods) when CO2 was allegedly very low: why did they happen??? And why did the temperature rise between 1930 and 1940 as fast as in the 1990s?
3. The evidence from chemical analyses of atmospheric CO2 which show much larger variations in CO2 over the last 2 centuries, using accurate analytical methods, have been discounted by IPCC. A good peer reviewed reference is Beck E-G, Energy and Environment, vol. 18, No 2,2007. 100 Years of Atmospheric CO2 gas analysis by Chemical Methods.
Regarding the precautionary principle, this is a normal part of all engineering risk assessment and needs to be linked to costs and benefits of the precautions taken. This linkage has been forgotten in the fields of climate change and pollution control. Both are being driven by half-proven hypotheses of massive future damage and a media who crave sensational headlines; as engineers we need to bring a balance to these arguments rather than just accept hype.

Another great day for renewables today. Overcast and flat calm. Perhaps if a couple of coal fired power stations were taken off the grid about 17:00 this evening we would see the limitations of and excessive dependency on renewables. UK government “policy” seems to have been focused on the demonization of coal above all else and the Climate Change Act has hobbled the economy with high energy costs and little by way of security of long term supply. Energy policy and strategy have been a political football since the 1960s and before. No further comment required.

As PM notes above, coal, CCGT and Nuclear are at almost full output at 5 pm. In fact, Gridwatch shows that the open cycle gas turbines are having to run to meet demand. Any fuel savings from the 7.4 GW generated by wind are lost in operating CCGTs to fill in the total lack of ability of wind to respond to demand. If we had a real cold snap the grid would struggle as the capacity of reliable generation is now too low.

It is worrying that coal power power stations converted to biomass are counted as renewable; it seems a political trick to hit targets. (one could even make claims for other biomass derived sources of fuel — oil, gas, coal ? Though that might be too much Trumping?).
It is interesting to see a related trend between increasing gas and renewables – if these contributions were broken down and displayed it might be possible to appreciate how much gas is required for which renewables (as also separate graphs – rather than cumulative ones that seem designed to mislead).
A proper and useful graph would assist in appreciating the cost effects – as it these arise from the requirement for expensive fuels (biomass, coal, gas, oil…).
This would help in considering causes of fuel poverty – though perhaps that is why the Business Strategy produced such a graph…